OCBC Bank chief executive Samuel Tsien received a 10.4 per cent pay increase last year, the bank said in its annual report yesterday.
Mr Tsien reaped $10.7 million, up from total remuneration of $9.69 million in 2017.
DBS Group Holdings CEO Piyush Gupta took home $11.9 million last year in cash and shares combined - a pay rise of 15.5 per cent.
United Overseas Bank CEO Wee Ee Cheong earned a 12 per cent increase in pay to $10.56 million last year.
Mr Tsien collected about $1.2 million in salary, $5.6 million in bonus and $3.7 million from deferred shares last year, with the remainder from other benefits.
OCBC chairman Ooi Sang Kuang and Mr Tsien noted in the report that the global outlook for this year is now more challenging as growth momentum has softened.
This slowdown is further clouded by uncertainties surrounding the US-China trade conflict, the possibility of a disorderly Brexit and monetary tightening in the United States. "These developments have undermined the conduct of world trade and finance and greatly dampened business and consumer confidence," they said.
Nonetheless, the Asian region is expected to benefit from the rearrangement of China's global supply chain as manufacturing and services activities are realigned to other countries for cost competitiveness and country of origin, they added.
"The fundamentals supporting Asia's growth remain sound. On balance, Asia as a region can continue to outperform the rest of the world," noted Mr Ooi and Mr Tsien.
OCBC said it will continue to "embrace digital technology".
It received two times more revenue from digital retail customers and three times more from digital business clients last year than non-digital customers, it noted.
Digital customers are defined as those who have used the Internet or mobile banking at least once in the past three months.
In Singapore, 49 per cent of OCBC's retail customers are in this category, up from 36 per cent in 2014, with aims to increase this to 55 per cent by this year. And 62 per cent of business customers are digital clients, up from 36 per cent in 2014. The bank aims to lift this to 65 per cent by this year.
OCBC also said it will focus on upskilling staff, with a $20 million investment to train and develop digital capabilities.
